Kathleen Grisham Art History Endowment

The Kathleen Grisham Art History Endowment was founded to benefit students who need assistance purchasing textbooks, CDs and other items necessary or beneficial for the study of art history at West Valley College. The scholarship endowment honors Kathleen Grisham, a gifted artist and dedicated professor who taught and mentored countless students from the mid 1970's to 2005.

Kathleen believed in the goodness of nature, the will to create, and power of art to illuminate an transcend our world. Her life was devoted to altering and enhancing the perceptions of those around her and brining them with her on a journey into the intellectual and aesthetic. She was born in Oklahoma in 1940, but the world was her home, and she embraced it all. from Egypt to Russia from New York to London, she walked the ancient and storied streets where artists once and still tread. If museums have citizens, then Kathleen was a citizen of the Louvre, the Getty, the Hermitage, the Metropolitan, the Triton and every hallowed place where art is preserved, revered and celebrated. She breathed those places in and carried them with her; she shared them so that her students were inspired and pushed to seek the highest achievement.

Kathleen's greatest passion was sharing the beauty and profundity of art, both in the classroom and through on-line courses. This endowment allows her to keep sharing.